


(last one out) please turn off the lights

by Medie



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Community: halfamoon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-10
Updated: 2012-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-30 22:32:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's made the Maquis' operations a raging success, she's made the Cardassians hurt, stumble. She's made them fail. Now they're returning the favor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(last one out) please turn off the lights

**Author's Note:**

> written for [](http://mareel.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**mareel**](http://mareel.dreamwidth.org/) for [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=half_a_moon)[**half_a_moon**](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=half_a_moon) and the prompt "Ro Laren - Regrets"

The Architect remembers the way the sicknesses swept through the camps. She remembers the way there was never enough of anything. The skilled doctors were taken away to treat Cardassians while the Vedeks could never find enough herbs and medicine to replace them.

She remembers the helpless feeling of watching her mother and all the others fall sick. Some would make it, some didn't, and some just didn't seem to care either way. Sometimes, she counted the Prophets among them.

Now is one of those times. The Architect has plans. She's made the Maquis' operations a raging success, she's made the Cardassians hurt, stumble. She's made them fail. Now they're returning the favor.

She watches their new allies (the Dominion, her Starfleet contacts say) sweep across the DMZ like a plague. Cell after cell goes dark, disappearing, and there's nothing left when they go to look.

The Architect is a strategic genius. She can't strategize their way out of this. Everything she has says the quadrant will be embroiled in war before long.

Starfleet tries to help. She watches them die too.

She resented them at first. When she left them, she resented them for their distance and refusal to fight, but outside she has a different view.

Outside, she can see the damage left by the Borg. Starfleet's spread thin. Too thin. Wolf 359's left them vulnerable and struggling to hide it.

If the Architect can see it then so can the Dominion.

Life is a tapestry of regrets. One laced into another into another to form something beautiful. At least, that's what she's spent the last decade telling herself. There's nothing beautiful in the wreckage around her.

There's nothing left in the Architect now.

She cleans out everything, destroys what she dare not take, and then sends names and locations to Starfleet. What's left of the Maquis will spend the oncoming war in prison, but they'll be alive.

Another regret, but one that Ro can live with.


End file.
